Perihelion

Chapter 8. Hideout

Derec stared up at the bright sky overhead as the truck moved along. Now that the danger of the Hunters was over for the moment, Mandelbrot proved to be an efficient driver. He took a number of turns, Derec guessed to complicate the reports of robots who witnessed their passing.

The Hunters would not have taken long to resume their single-minded pursuit. However, they would now have to follow the truck’s path. They had no way of learning its destination and instructing others to lie in wait for it.

As far as Derec knew, Mandelbrot didn’t even have a destination.

Ariel and Wolruf sat quietly with Derec, all three slumped so that they were not visible from the street, though any robot observing from the buildings above had a clear view of them if it looked.

“That seemed awfully easy,” said Ariel. “I don’t understand how those big, strong robots with their positronic brains could let themselves be thrown overboard like that.”

Derec laughed in spite of the pain it caused in his ribs. “Surprise, mostly. Robot drivers are always very careful. Those Avery robots have never experienced a human driver speeding along recklessly.”

“But Mandelbrot’s a robot.”

“Yeah, but he was in the rescue business. He must have weighed the relative danger to us from an accident against the certainty of danger if we were taken to Avery, and decided to throw them off balance-literally.”

“That sounds like a touch of creative thinking, too,” said Ariel. “Lucius, the Cracked Cheeks, all the other robots who were showing signs of ‘contagious’ robot creativity. Poor Lucius. I wonder where the rest of them are now.”

“Come back to prresent,” said Wolruf. “Hunterrs won’t give up. Robotss learn fasst. Won’t fool them the same way again.”

Eventually, Derec closed his eyes against the light. They were safe for the moment and could relax. He dozed, still vaguely aware of the stiffness in his legs and back and of the rhythmic motion of the truck.

He woke up in subdued light to the wonderful sensation of Ariel massaging his back. They were on a clean floor inside a large building. The truck was nearby, also inside. A large door, big enough to accommodate the truck, was in the front wall of the building.

“What is this place?” He asked softly.

“You’re awake. How are you feeling?” She paused to ruffle his hair affectionately.

“A little better. Sort of. Where are we?”

“I’m not sure. Mandelbrot can tell you.” She turned. “Mandelbrot, he’s awake.”

“Greetings, Derec.” Mandelbrot walked over and looked down at him. “We are temporarily safe. The Hunters will have to locate us by questioning witnesses along our route, and they became quite sparse after a time. I used an evasive pattern that included doubling back and crisscrossing at random. I cannot calculate how long we have.”

Wolruf joined them and sat down quietly.

“You’re quite a truck driver, Mandelbrot.” Derec forced a smile. “Thanks.”

“I had the vehicle under control at all times,” said the robot. “The First Law -”

“I never doubted it, Mandelbrot. Time to reconnoiter, though, I suppose. What do we do now?” He tried to raise up on one elbow, but winced and lay down again.

“I will bring you up-to-date,” said Mandelbrot. “This building houses fully automated, non-positronic equipment that cannot identify and report us to the central computer.”

“You mean something actually happens here? I thought it was a warehouse or something.” Derec looked around at all the empty space. “Avery robots don’t waste facilities like this.”

“The only functioning equipment is in the far comer from here. It sends vibrations into the ground that report the firmness of pavement and building foundations within a certain radius. “

“That’s all?” Derec laughed. “All this space for a systems-maintenance sensor?”

Ariel shrugged. “You can see for yourself. Nothing else is here. Four walls, a ceiling, and a floor.”

“It follows some information Wolruf and I were able to gather before the Hunters prevented us from returning to the Compass Tower,” said Mandelbrot. “The robots here are under migration programming of some kind.”

“Yes! Did you find out what that is?”

“Not precisely,” said Mandelbrot. “It has caused a general instruction, however, to reduce the staffs allover Robot City to skeleton level.”

“That’s something,” said Derec thoughtfully.

“As an example,” said Mandelbrot, “the size of this building implies equipment no longer present. I surmise that the original functions taking place here were either discontinued or improved technologically to the point where humanoid robots became unnecessary. At that point, the staff followed its migration programming and departed. “

Derec nodded. “Without eliminating or modifying the building for greater efficiency. This migration must have an extremely high priority.”

“And he told me that no general alert has gone out for us, as you guessed,” said Ariel. “That’s still the case, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Mandelbrot.

“Something big has been going on here for a long time,” said Derec. “Think about it. This must be the Robot City that Dr. Avery actually envisioned.”

“What do you mean?” Ariel asked.

“When we first arrived, that wild shapechanging dominated the city. The Supervisors befriended us because they needed help and they wanted to serve humans.”

Ariel nodded cautiously. “And solve the mystery of that murder. We never did figure out who the victim was.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “Who just happened to look exactly like you.”

Derec chose not to discuss that. He was afraid of sending her into another displaced memory episode. “Then, while the Key Center was in operation, the city was in a lull while a huge number of Keys were being duplicated and stored. We were treated with a kind of benign neglect, wouldn’t you say?”

“I guess you could call it that,” she said. “But they were very cooperative in finding Jeff Leong, the cyborg.”

He nodded. “Temporarily a cyborg. The Laws of Robotics required that. Now, though, everything seems to be changed. And it happened after we left for Earth and Dr. Avery remained here.”

“So every robot here has been reprogrammed?”

“I think so. The city has that same sense of obsessive purpose that I first saw on that asteroid. And I haven’t seen any sign of the robot creativity we saw before we left here.”

Ariel tensed. “Oh, no. You mean you think it was programmed out of them?”

“It looks that way to me. Right now, Mandelbrot may be the only robot on the planet who can think independently enough to do things like rescue us by driving crazily.”

“You said the local robots are now acting like the ones on the asteroid. You mean the asteroid you were on right after you first woke up with amnesia, before we met?”

“Yeah.”

“I agree,” said Mandelbrot. “The narrow focus of the Hunters supports your conclusion, though now Wolruf and I must have been added to the list of quarry.”

“We need a new plan of action,” said Derec. “And I’m getting sicker all the time.”

“At the moment, I suggest that you three remain here,” said Mandelbrot. “I must find a new food source for you. Also, while the Hunters must now be looking for me also, I still blend the most with the native population.”

“‘U ‘ave no wherr to go,” said Wolruf.

“Good point,” said Derec. “Maybe you can get a lead on that from the central computer without giving yourself away. Go ahead.”

“I can try. And I still have the use of the truck.” Mandelbrot walked to the far corner of the building and pushed a button to open the big door that led to the street.

“Does the equipment here include a terminal?” Derec asked.

“No. I will have no way to contact you.” Mandelbrot mounted the front of the truck and looked down at them. “We have been out of sight here for a while. If the Hunters have widened the radius of their search by this time, I may be able to avoid them. “

“Good luck, Mandelbrot,” said Ariel. “Don’t take too many chances, all right?”

Mandelbrot drove out into the sunlight and turned onto the street. Someone closed the big door behind him. As he drove, he kept watch for Hunters, aware that they would recognize a function truck being driven by a humanoid robot before they would recognize him in particular. He accessed the central computer.

“Transmit a topographical map of this planet with land use identified,” he said.

“WHAT IS YOUR IDENTITY AND YOUR DUTY TASK?” The central computer asked.

He broke the link. The central computer had not always required that information during every communication, but now it was asking him every time. Perhaps it was part of the new security system. He accessed again, just to make sure.

“Give me the location of agricultural developments on this planet,” he said.

“WHAT IS YOUR IDENTITY AND YOUR DUTY TASK?”

He broke contact again. Identifying himself was too risky, and doing so still might not get him the information. He would have to think of something else.

In the meantime, he drove. He kept watch for any break in the grid of city streets and buildings that might indicate a change of land use, but that would only work if Avery was growing food in the open…and doing it nearby. Mandelbrot also turned his attention to smells, in the hope of detecting chemical processing of edible substances.

Far above the planet, a small spacecraft was just entering the atmosphere, still too distant to be visible from the ground. It carried only one passenger.

His name was Jeff Leong, and he had come to repay a debt of gratitude.

Jeff was entering the atmosphere of Robot City in a Hayashi-Smith, which was a small, discontinued model with facilities for ten people. It bore the exotic name of Minneapolis. The ship computer was doing the flying. Jeff had managed to rent it with his father’s credit after persuading him that no one else could be trusted with the task of making this trip.

“Status report,” Jeff said to the computer, watching the screen that showed him white clouds ahead and the glittering pattern far below of urban development.

“EXCELLENT,” said the computer. “SYSTEMS ARE OPERATING EFFICIENTLY AND WEATHER IS OPTIMAL. SELECT LANDING SITE.”

“I don’t know where to land yet,” said Jeff. “I never really knew the geography of this place. Uh, scan for a big pyramid with a flat top, okay? And I mean a. big pyramid.”

“SCANNING. THIS MAY REQUIRE A PROLONGED PERIOD IN VERY LOW ORBIT, DEPENDING ON CLOUD COVER.”

“Whatever it takes.” Jeff leaned back and relaxed.

This was much better than his last arrival on this planet. That had been an emergency crash-landing that had killed everyone else on board. He shook his head to avoid the memories of that frantic descent.

“Computer,” he said aloud. “While you’re scanning, keep watch for humans. I’m looking for a couple of them. And as far as I know, they’re the only humans here.”

“SCANNING MODIFIED.”

The ship computer was not fully positronic, but it was efficient enough to accept Jeff’s orders and translate them into ship controls.

He hoped that finding Derec, Ariel, Mandelbrot, and Wolruf would not take too long. When he had left the planet in the only functioning spacecraft it had-a modified lifepod that supported only one passenger-he had promised to send help back if he could. The craft had taken him to a space lane, and had remained there, sending out a distress signal while keeping him alive.

The ship that had rescued him had been jumping from star to star back to Aurora, and he had yet to reach Nexon, where he hoped to start college. This rescue mission was an important matter of pride to him, since Derec and Ariel and the robot medical team had saved his life. Then Derec and Ariel had sent him away when each of them would have liked to use that ship personally.

He sighed and watched the screen. He expected most of the problem to be in locating them. The Minneapolis was outfitted to take them all back to Aurora together.

“PYRAMID LOCATED,” said the computer. “CLOSE-UP ON SCREEN. PLEASE IDENTIFY.”

On the viewscreen, the Compass Tower shone in the sunlight. The angle was from above, of course, and a little to one side. At this distance, it looked like a flawless model on a design display.

“That’s it,” said Jeff excitedly, sitting forward to look. “Can you land near it somewhere without smashing up anything?”

“SCANNING FOR A LOW-RISK LANDING SITE IN THE AREA,” said the computer. “TO AVOID ALL CHANCE OF DAMAGE TO MANUFACTURED AND CONSTRUCTED PROPERTY, THIS CRAFT REQUIRES MORE LANDING SPACE THAN THE AREA HAS SO FAR OFFERED. “

“Show me the area as you scan it,” said Jeff. “Just try to land as close as you can.”

“DISPLAYING.”

Jeff watched the screen closely as the view pulled back to a greater height and began to move quickly across the landscape. At first he tried to recognize other places, such as a city plaza he remembered and the distinctive bronze dome of the Key Center. He couldn’t find them. Then, as the camera continued to scan, he realized that they were covering a lot of area very quickly.

“Look for an open grassy region,” he said. “It was just outside the city. I’m sure it wasn’t more than a few kilometers from that tower.”

“PERIMETER OF URBAN DEVELOPMENT NOT LOCATED. SCANNING CONTINUES.”

He watched as block after block of city passed beneath them. The robots had continued building, much faster than he had ever imagined. He couldn’t afford to land on the other side of the planet. Derec and Ariel had lived close to the tower.

“Listen,” he said. “Most of this population is robots. If they’re damaged, they can be repaired. Just don’t hit the buildings, ‘cause we won’t survive, either.” He grinned at his own humor.

“CLARIFY.”

“We have to land around here somewhere. Try to avoid the robots, but give us priority. Watch out for humans; other than that, find a place in the city near that tower where we can land. A park, a plaza, a big intersection. Something like that.”

“SCANNING MODIFIED FOR MODERATE-RISK LANDING SITE. SITE SELECTED.”

“Good,” said Jeff. “That was quick. See if you can reach the city’s central computer. Give it fair warning of our landing site so it can tell everybody to get out of the way.”

“LINK ESTABLISHED. WARNING SENT AND ACKNOWLEDGED. CURRENT SPEED REQUIRES WIDE TURN.PREPARE FOR LANDING IN APPROXIMATELY TWELVE MINUTES.”

Jeff grinned. “Good job.”

Eleven and a half minutes later, Jeff stared in tense fascination at the screen as the small ship sliced through the atmosphere at a low angle and came shooting straight toward the skyline. The Minneapolis was versatile enough to act as both a shuttle and starship, which was why he had chosen it. He trusted the computer, which would not allow him to come to harm if it could help it, despite being non-positronic…and yet even the computer couldn’t prevent every malfunction. After all, he had just barely survived one crash here.

He was gripping the sides of the chair and sweating freely as the screen showed a broad boulevard stretching straight ahead. The ship was going to land along the pavement-did this thing have wheels? In a panic, he couldn’t remember.

It must have; the computer wasn‘t stupid.

The streetfronts of a thousand buildings shot by in a blur, first below and then on both sides. The ship touched down and streaked along the empty street, suddenly decelerating sharply.

Everyone was out of the way; the city’s central computer had done its part. The boulevard was as flat and straight as only a city of robots would construct. The ship came to a halt.